earworm

An earworm is a song, or a bit of a song, that gets stuck in your head and keeps replaying whether you like it or not.

What earworm means

Merriam-Webster defines earworm as a song or melody that keeps repeating in your mind. Usually it’s a short loop, a chorus or a jingle, not the whole track. Calling a song “an earworm” can be praise (it’s catchy) or a complaint (you can’t get rid of it). Music critics use it for pop hooks; parents use it for whatever children’s song has been playing in the car for a week.

Researchers have studied the experience under names like “involuntary musical imagery,” and Wikipedia notes it’s one of the most common kinds of involuntary thought. In other words: it’s not just you.

Examples

• “That jingle is a total earworm. I’ve been humming it all day.”
• “Don’t play that song, it’s an earworm and I have an exam tomorrow.”
• “The chorus is a perfect earworm: four notes and you’re hooked.”

Where it came from

Earworm is a calque, a word-for-word translation, of the German Ohrwurm. In English it had an older, literal meaning first: Merriam-Webster dates “earworm” to 1802, for the corn earworm, a crop-eating caterpillar. The musical sense came later. Wikipedia cites the earliest known English use in Desmond Bagley’s 1978 novel Flyaway, where the author points out its German origin.

Related terms

• Banger: a great song.
• Bop: a catchy, upbeat song.
• Vibe: the feeling a song or place gives off.

See more terms like this in our internet slang guide.